Religious Freedom Doesn’t Trump Canada’s Marijuana Laws

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The Church of the Universe in Toronto, Ontario maintains that Canada’s marijuana laws violate their right to religious freedom. The church, which refers to marijuana as the “Tree of Life….from the Garden of Eden, a gift from God,” encourages its members to “surround themselves with the holy Tree of Life, not just inhaling it, but wearing it, growing it, writing on it, eating it, etc.”

However, the CBC reports that the reverends Peter Styrsky and Shahrooz Kharaghani ran into trouble in 2006 when they allegedly sold small amounts of marijuana to undercover police officers who were posing as members of the church.

The two reverends submitted a legal challenge arguing that the church uses the drug as a sacrament and that the law they were charged under infringes on their religious rights under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Their claim was thrown out by the judge on Monday after Justice Thea Herman of the Ontario Superior Court ruled that “distributing marijuana is not an activity that deserves protection as a religious freedom.” She ruled that giving a legal exemption for the use of marijuana for religious purposes is not feasible due to “difficulties in identifying both the religious user and the religious use of cannabis.”

However, the reverends do not see her decision entirely as a defeat. As reported by the Toronto Star, despite defeating the motion, the judge also stated that “the laws against pot possession – though not trafficking – limited the two men’s freedom of religion.” According to the CBC, Reverend Styrsky said: “I think the judge said that we do have the right to use it. She just didn’t know how to implement it for us.”

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55 comments

Why would you use weed in church? It is where you go to worship God, not catch a high and why are they selling it too? If it is for religous purpose why isn't it free? Do you pay for song books to be able to sing? Keep weed out of the church.

so many stupid things might be practised by religions! should we allow them here? like those morons who are the fans of polygamy?! or those fools who have no brains and think they are doing good to imprison women or treat them like animals as they believe their stupid religion had wanted it from them? when something is illegal, all must respect that...they are not happy? please go somewhere else!

Euphoria, like happiness, is a byproduct in true spirituality and not the objective -- it's like falling in love with love, not the other person. True spirituality is the relational connection between one's self and God.

It's funny but I thought that the God you might be believing in was the God of Love. Also the Sun God... and it's funny how "son" and "sun" are phonetically the same in English...

"Love love for love's sake".. could translate to "love god for god's sake"..

the next question is define god... open your mind to the potential that just as we are all children of the stars we also are aspects of the divine...